Archives for February 2024

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

The Doors second album Strange Days was unique in the annals of music. The second side, the B side, had one song The End. It is a long haunting seemingly rambling poem by Jim Morrison. Nothing has ever come closer to capturing the Id. After that album Morrison went more into his thoughts of being The Lizard Man. He drank too much. Became addicted to liquor and died in Paris under strange circumstances.

But that song, and that album were the turning points. Maybe, they had peaked already with their first album, which included Light My Fire, however Strange Days and The End signaled something dark and, yes, strange. I guess there was nowhere to go with it after that. The photos on the front and the back of the album were shot in a little alley in Greenwich Village. That same year as the album’s release Montgomery Wards catalog featured a lady in a large beautifully pleated skirt on its cover. She was standing in the same alleyway where the strongman, the midget, and the juggler had been for the Doors’ album art. Strange indeed.

In that song The End Morrison reveals things that most may only think about but never say. Maybe, most don’t think about what he was talking about, however one can imagine that others do think such thoughts. The piece leaves me quiet with nowhere to go. It is the end.

In other news Tucker Carlson went to Russia and listened to Vladimir Putin ramble on. He also discovered that the Moscow subway has beautiful gold framed pictures called art work by some. They are tile representations of the people workers. 

He also discovered that Russia like many European supermarkets uses a coin inserted device to encourage people to return the shopping cart and get their coin back when they snap the cart back in line. I guess, Tucker, like George Bush who was blown away by bar code scanners at a supermarket years after they were introduced, doesn’t get out much. Certainly, not to Europe, or his local Aldi Supermarket where he could have seen this fabulous technology “to keep homeless people from stealing the carts”* in action.

*I quote from memory Sir Tucker.

John Oliver has offered Clarence Thomas a million dollars a year to quit the Supreme Court and thrown in a $2.3 million dollar motor home as a sweetener. Will Clarence take the offer? Will Harlan Crow, the Nazi napkin collector, up the offer to have Clarence stay on? What an opportunity for Clarence! If Harlan responds this will be the first time in the history of the Supreme Court that we will see the open buying and selling of a judge.

Sam Alito, recently shown on the Daily Show holding a big fish in Alaska on a fishing trip that he didn’t pay for and didn’t report because – well Do you have to report that? There’s nothing in The Constitution saying you have to report fishing trips – is now concerned about “woke.”

Being concerned about woke is a good strategy and excuse to do anything you want because no one really can say what woke it. It’s far better than calling people names in public because people can sue you for that. Woke won’t. It’s a much safer, dare I say Conservative? Way to go. Or to put it in other terms Chicken Shit.

But Alito has had a long tradition of being chicken shit as have most of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court. How many have seen clips from their confirmation hearings where they are shown lying about what they would do about Roe? Or Alito getting appointed by Bush because he told W that he could ignore the law he was signing with an Executive Summary because that hadn’t been tested in the courts.

Yeah. Presidential Immunity hasn’t been tested either. 

Finally, The Ukrainian army had to pull back because we didn’t give them enough bullets. In the confusion of the retreat 800 to 1,000 of their soldiers may have been captured by the Russians.

Also, the big reactor is in danger of melting down. Let’s not do anything. Let’s wait and see what happens. I mean scientists say it will pollute a huge piece of Ukraine for one hundred years and much of the Black Sea where the Russian mobsters have their villas and it will reach Istanbul. But what do scientists know? I read on the internet …

It’s no longer good enough to say, “God help us” and move on.

This is the end

my only friend.

The End.

This just in. The guy whom the Republicans were making their whole case against the Bidens, whom the FBI has arrested for lying and making the whole story up…has connections to Russia.

I think it is time to rename the Republican Party to The Russian Putin Party or RPP. It has a nicer, truer ring to it. More in keeping with their real intentions and actions.

Oh and in Wisconsin, after 13 years of Republican bullying and cheating (okay not cheating, just not playing fair. Called gerrymandering so they got many more seats in the state legislature than what the voters reflected they wanted.) Their supreme court has said they have to redraw the election maps so they have to compete fairly. OMG No! You realize if they have to play fair they’ll lose. I mean there aren’t enough stupid people (yet*) for them to push their cockamamie ideas without cheating.

*But don’t forget the RPP plans and actions to make public schools worse.

Now, this is the end!

Monday, February 19, 2024

Shelby went out for most of the day, which left me alone with my thoughts, a dangerous thing to be sure.

By 10 a.m. the part for the dishwasher had arrived from Amazon. It’s a little piece of rope with plastic ends. It anchors the spring that allows the door to open assisted, without dropping like a ton of deadweight. All you have to do is pull the machine out, take off the side panel, remove the old part which is now in two pieces because the rope wore out, and put the machine back together and slide it back in place.

Estimated time – all day.

The fix – if you know what you are doing – takes 30 seconds. The problem is there’s no drawing or photo showing you how it’s supposed to look. The last time I did this repair I took the door apart, only to realize that the hinge attaches to the door, but did not pivot or get restrained via the door. 

Then you have to pull the dishwasher out from under the cabinet, but you can’t because the water line and the electric wires are too short. Of course you don’t realize you have to pull the dishwasher all the way out to take off the side panel until you’ve got the door in pieces (the first time. This time I skipped that step) and the screws are out from the front of the side panel. “Huh, there must be screws in the back end of the dishwasher.”

So now you had better have cut the electricity. And to get to the water cut off, which is under the sink ,you have to remove all the cans and bottles on that half of the under sink cabinet. You can’t quite get in to unscrew the water hose because the cabinet has two doors and a big piece of honking wood running down the middle of the cabinet, which means your shoulders don’t quite fit.

Eventually, you get the hose detached and realize that the hose is held back by the hole in the wood side panel and you’ll have to detach the other end too. At some point you also realize that the electric wires are too short and they have to come off too. All this requires lying on your side on the floor with little clearance to swing a wrench for the hose fitting.

Finally, the dishwasher comes out. You can remove the back four screws, remove the side panel, and take out one half of the broken part. The part that when the rope broke got flung by the spring into the bowels of the dishwasher where it’s been half blocking your attempts to close the door when trying to run the machine until you realize that the door hinge is broken. The other half is still on the right angle extention on the door. That’s good news because you now know where the part is anchored. However, something doesn’t look right. How are you going to attach the other end to the long spring? 

Fortunately, the kid took a picture of the assembled spring when the other side broke awhile back. All I need to do is search 8,771 photos to find it. This is harder than you imagine because with that many photos it’s easy to miss the one you are looking for. I had recently learned about “tagging” a photo and promised myself to mark the photo once I found it. After some 45 minutes I found it. First thing I was going to do was tag it. This requires you know how to tag a photo. I suggest Apple do something clever like make a little caption marked “Tag,” but that’s not what they’ve done. Instead you need to know what to tap or pull up to get to the place where it says “add caption.” Not “tag” but “add caption.” Hey, does your marketing department (the features and benefits folks) talk to the engineers putting in the features that benefit folks? No? That was Steve Jobs job (Jobs job – get it?) and he’s dead. So no. Okay.

So I tapped something or swiped something and my photo disappeared and I landed back at square one. But this time the search was cut in half timewise because I remembered photos I had skimmed past. (“No, after that … and that…”) 

Found it. Looked at at photo first. (“Oh the plastic piece conected to the hinge goes around the little white wheel and then to the spring whose other end attaches to the edge of the dishwasher.”) The conceptual problem I was having was that, apparently, when the rope broke the piece attached to the right angle extension had flipped 180 degrees. When I looked to attach the new rope piece I couldn’t figure out how in the position of the old piece it could work. Well, it couldn’t. Duh. This only became clear after looking at the photo. (“Hey. LG, Terrific idea. Put a line drawing on the bag with the part, or in a little piece of paper that you put in the bag. It would take ten seconds for an engineer to draw it and what three years to get it into the packaging, but it would be so worth it.”)

After noting the date of the photo I attempted to tag it. Oh yeah, swipe up the details where you get the map of where the photo was taken and in light gray small letters at the top of the pull up display it says, “Caption.” Why didn’t I think to look there to “tag” a photo. But I get it. This is part of a long tradition of folks telling you how easy something is to do, demonstarting it with hot young models in bikinis or tight fitting banana carrier swim suits, and not actually showing you how to do it, but just the effect once you do it. And don’t forget to switch the title of the benefit to something else when you get into it so people are confused (“Is adding a caption tagging?”)

Okay. Photo tagged, spring on. “put the dishwasher back together and slide into place.” Estimated time – half a day. Why? The wires and the water pipe have to be slide under the machine as you put it back into place. This can be a huge P.in.The.A (or “PINTA” Now, we know where Columbus put all the whiners on his cruise.)

The trick here is to have the right technology, which in this case is masking tape and 4 foot long marshmellow skewers. Pass the skewers from the front of the machine where you want the water hose and the electric wires to go. There’s a conceptual mistake that often is made: that you can “pull” the wires and the hose through. This would be true if the wires and hose were ong enough, but they are not. You have to push the dishwasher over and let the hose and wires come through the machine. This is equivalent to trying to have intercourse with a limp (no, not gonna say it. Wouldn’t be prudent.) 

Once the skewers are through the machine along the paths for the hose and the wires tape the skewers to their respective components. In the cae of the hose you can stick the pointy end into the hose end – and tape it. For the wires wrap masking tape for 3 or 4 inches allong the skewer making sure to wrap the little ends of wire so they don’t get caught as they pass through.

Now, here comes the genius trick. (Mark this part of the essay with a lit match!) …

Tape the skewers to the floor! If you don’t the wires, hose, and skewers will move around, (Refer to Limp Dick note above*.)

* Darnit, I said it. “Wet Spaghetti” Yeah that’s it. “Through a key hole.”

Now put the disnwasher in place, pul hose enough to be able to attach it. Because the hose has to make a right angle bend to attach it throws off the threading and causes binding whcih makes the nut really hard to turn, unless you hold the hose straight on. Gee, I wish I had thought of doing that when I was dataching that nut.

Attach wires. “Do you remember how they go?” No. Look at photos you took to make sure. Okay. Done. Now realize you forgot to put wires through little hole to box where wires reside. Debate leaving as is. Detach. Stick it through (No limp noodle here!) reattach wires. Try to push back into box and put on cover. Cover won’t go on withoutlots of cursing and fiddling and … there it is! Done.

Now attach the other end of the water hose. Just pull the hose back through the hole in the wood. Hose won’t budge. Is it caught on the back of the dishwasher. Will I have to pull the dishwasher back out? Try new strategy “Curse and Pull.” It worked. I can almost get it to reach the water cutoff valve. Short six inches. (No. Don’t say it. Don’t think it.) More curse and pull – for six inches. Should sound familiar. “Come on Baby!”

Something let go and the hose is released. Fits onto spigot. No problem, other than earlier mentioned shoulders wood slat.

Done. Turn back on breaker. Push buttons on dishwasher for test. It works. No splarks. No wet spots (No. I told you, “don’t think it.”)

Done. Except for all those bottles and cans to go bck under the sink. And the tools put back.

Time! – All day, with breaks for lunch, Hopkins lacrosse, and a show on JWST on NOVA, which was incredible.

I meant to write about something else.

Oh well. (Old Age and Debonair. That was it. Damn.)

Saturday, February 17, 2024

What was your answer to the above?

Mine is, “No.”

Call it fraud, or cheating, or scamming, or lying there is not one thing I can think of that Donald Trump has done that has not had an unsavory aspect to it.

When he went to college he had his sister do his homework.

He dodged the draft by claiming bone spurs but can’t remember which foot.

His real estate transactions have been tinged with lying to banks, regulators, and the public.

He has stiffed workers, contractors and others whom he owed money to.

His charity was a sham, as was his university.

His presidency was a series of press conferences with little or no action in between, except for decisions that benefited our enemies and disparaged our allies and our citizens.

His behavior has been a chronology of racist sexist actions.

Now, he is starting to be held to account. The judge in the fraud case that just concluded has kept an overseer in place because there is no confidence that he and his organization will change their ways. In fact, there is little evidence to suggest they could if they wanted to. 

Like so many Trump related things, when you get down to it, there is little there. It’s all bluster. The Trump Organization has been characterized as a mom and pop shop, but it’s a really poorly run one. 

It appears that Trump may finally be exposed for the fraud that he is.

In other news … The Republican whistle blower who was taunted as exposing the Bidens and all their crimes has been arrested for lying. Yup. So what will the two Republican committees do now? Why, carry on. Just because they have no facts, no evidence, no hint, no whiff of any wrongdoing doesn’t mean they can’t blather on and insinuate. They could take a different tact, like work on problems this country has. But why help the American people? Just because that’s what you were elected to do, it’s ore fun to rip the country apart. 

Putin has killed his opposition leader. Now why did he pick this time to do it? Well, what are we going to do?

Given the intransigence of the Republicans in Congress to do anything because it might be perceived as helping the country they will do whatever to stop any action. 

Meanwhile, two kids shot at each other at the Kansas City Chiefs celebratory parade. 

We have to accept that currently we let people who are mentally ill, in crisis, to have guns.

We also do whatever we can to stop the government from regulating guns. That includes back ground checks, which have to be done on paper not computers.

Fani Willis – I thought it was a mistake for her not to recused herself from the RICO case, that is until she took the stand in her own defense. I, like a lot of people, got a look into the world and culture of black America. It’s her reputation that was being besmirched by innuendo and false statements made by the Trump lawyers and as she pointed out, “I’m not on trial here. No matter how much you try. He is for trying to steal an election.” But the Trump lawyers tried. Their main way of doing this was to ask the same question in multiple ways in an effort to make a connection between her and an agent of the court whom she slept with. Did she profit from hiring him? That was the question. There was and is no evidence that she did. Well, maybe… No. And she explained very plainly why. 

Go Fani go.

Was it poor judgement, etc. ? Yeah. But so what? It doesn’t make Trump any less guilty.

Next.

Manhattan criminal case.

Followed by the D.C. case.

Followed by the Florida case.

And maybe a few D.C. police officers suing?

Is there still a case to be brought against Trump for insurrection? I mean an AG could change their mind.

Here’s hoping.

Oh and btw scientists have issued another warning that global warming and the melting of the ice at the North Pole and Greenland is happening much faster than earlier predicted. They say we are at an inflection point where the currents in the Atlantic Ocean may cease. If this happens Europe will experience an ice age and the Atlantic Ocean will rise three feet or more.

But I’m sure Republican laughing at and hand waving and calling this “Woke” will take care of it.

Don’t look up! Don’t look down!

Thursday, February 8, 2024

Numerous things have transpired this week, it is hard to know where to start. Let us start in Michigan where a jury found the mother of the teenager who shot and killed four of his fellow classmates guilty of involuntary manslaughter of all four of the classmates he murdered. Why? I dunno. They, she and the husband who will go on trial later, gave the kid a gun even though they knew he was having mental problems. Just before he shot the four and others he was have delusions and she and her husband knew it. What did they do? Went out horseback riding and drinking. Whoopi. 

Pictures started circulating on social media of the murdered Kyle Ritenhouse suggesting that perhaps now his mom would face charges. Why her? Once again, I dunno. I mean all she did was drive sweet little Kyle dressed as the publicity graphic comic ad by the gun manufacturers’ suggested Kyle dress: JR15, cargo pants, T-shirt, and backwards baseball cap to a peacful demonstration where Kyle thought it would be cool to wave his gun around. When a guy with a skateboard tried to stop Kyle from threatening people he shot and killed the dude, and one other. He got off. He beat the rap. What a man. Then he pulled the Brett Kavenaough cry bit at his trial. 

Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson was spotted in Moscow. What’s he doing there? We don’t know. Maybe, getting more marching orders to bring back to the pro-Putin faction in Congress? I dunno.

Now we get to “rubber meets the road” or the “fantasy meets reality” part of the week. Maybe, it’s truth versus fantasy? (BS?) Hard to know exactly what to call it.

But here we go. The newly minted Speaker of the House got a lesson in …in counting? When he and fellow Republicans tried to impeach the Homeland Security chief for doing his job. The vote failed. But they’ve vowed to try again! 

Also, the right wing Republicans have been yelling for, well, ever that they want to close the border and to fix the problem at the border. They got their chance when a bipartisan very tough conservative border bill was put before them. What did they do? They said that this wasn’t necessary and that Biden could do it all by executive order and by the way his Homeland Security guy needed to be impeached for doing his job. The weirdest thing was Ted Cruz’s comments. He called the bill a stinking pile of you know what, and he compared Biden to Hannibal Lecter. Interesting. Had he read the bill? No.

The bill also had aid to Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and other places. All of which the Republicans said they wanted, until they were given it. Then they didn’t. 

And then … and then … Fox Business … a panel of eigh of them, waiting … waiting for the jobs number. These are not people who are fans of Biden or his economic policies. They prefer the strategies of that conservative woman in the UK who was Prime Minister for five weeks. Remember they hailed her plan as true conservatism? That it would turn the economy of Britain around and things would be up up from there? Well, all they needed to do with that British economic hockey stick projection was take it off the easel and flip it 180 degrees so that the rosey upward projection pointed straight into the cellar. Okay. Okay, they are waiting for the jobs number. Estimates place it at 161,000 to 163,000 new jobs for the month. Here it comes. “What do ya got Pam?” Or whomever you are in the bottom right hand box on the TV. This is kind of like the old Hollywood Squares. “353,000.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Three Hundred and Fifty Three Thousand new jobs for the month.”

“That’s pretty good.” Ya think? Wow. Such insightful analysis. Biden blows away the jobs number, almost double the estimate and they think it’s pretty good? Okay, I’m not sure what they said. I do know they were stunned and actually admitted that it was a good number. And they so wanted it to be bad. Tough break.

Or as one of them said later, “If I had those kind of numbers I’d run on it too.”

Unemployment is below 4% and has been for months and months. Something the orange one tried to do and didn’t.

These economic numbers and others show Biden to have the best economic numbers of any President in modern history. This as opposed to Trump who had the worst numbers, except for Herbert Hoover. It’s kind of a neck and neck race for them to the bottom.

Yet, Trump is seen as being better for the economy. One has to ask why and the simple answer may be messaging. Republicans are willing to go negative and Democrats try to defend their record. Defense in politics doesn’t seem to work. Offense. And the more offensive the better. Sad but true.

And then there’s Citizen Trump. A three judge panel made up of a Republican appointed and two Democratically appointed judges struck down ever claim and argument made by Trump’s lawyer. Apparently, the President and a person who was President can be held accountable for crimes whty committed, while in office, before they were in office, and after they left office. Who knew? Well, everybody, but it was good to hear it spelled out explicitly. Now, what? Well, more happy horse dung from the lawyers of Citizen Trump, but there’s another case which is going to oral argument today in front of the folks who overturned Roe V Wade, who gutted the Voting Rights bill, and allowed big money to put in as much as they wanted to skew an election (okay, that was a bit earlier). 10 a.m. today, February 8th – oral arguments as to whether a person who directed an insurrection against the United States of America can be on a primary ballot in Colorado. Guess who brought the suit? A 91 year old lady.

Why is it always women who are holding Trump to account? Judges, Prosecutors, citizens … other than Alvin Bragg in New York it’s all women. I’ll tell you why. Because the body of mainly rich white males who could have done their duty and voted to convict Trump on impeachment were too scared to do it. They had two chances.

In other factoids it is estimated that 91,000 (or was it 61,000?) babies were born in 14 states that outlawed abortion due to rape. Yeah, that’s right. Thousands of babies were forced upon women that were raped.

Now some of the idiots that claim “sanctity of life” and all that garbage will no doubt clam the same thing when these babies come of age in 18 to 20 years? Right? Right? Hello? Those kids will either start to act out or be a burden on society because they will have been by and large neglected. The notion that a mother will naturally care for her child as an innate instinct has been refuted in a case study in Brazil. In a very poor, hard scrabble part of the country mothers don’t give a child much care until they reach the age of two? Why? In many cases the child won’t survive that long, so why expend the effort? Hard truth.

And 18 to 20 years after Roe was the law of the land, crime dropped. Malcolm Gladwell wrote it was due to all the unwanted pregnancies being terminated. Some have argued that isn’t true. Well, we get to see, if we live long enogh.

Remember the zero population growth movement? This was started based on a theory presented in 1798 by Robert Mathus, which said that any population will use all the resources it has unless it is contrained. This led to the ZPG or Zero Population Growth movement, which was doing quite nicely until Reagan cut a deal with the Pope and killed it.

Yeah. And now we have these whiners about “Every life is precious,” but to quote George Carlin, “Says who?” Certainly, not the people espousing those platitudes. 

Ah me. Set your radio dial to PBS or NPR or wherever for 10am to hear the oral arguments as to why a person who committed insurrection should not be allowed on the ballot to run for President.

Monday, February 5, 2024

I read a short piece by a buddy of mine. It was terrific. I commented that it was and suggested he should write more. He was kind of blown away. I was blown away that he was blown away…

This is for all you who aspire to write.

What made that piece so good was I could hear his voice. By that I mean literally I could hear it as if he were talking to me telling me the story. And the story – that’s important. It’s important to have a story. A story should have a point. Most stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end with a conclusion that wraps the whole thing up.

They don’t have to be long, but they can be. They shouldn’t wander around. Especially, with today’s audiences and their short attention spans.

Robert McKee who wrote the only book you need on writing* said it this way, and I paraphrase – all stories (films, novels) should be three act plays, and if they aren’t you better have a damn good reason why they aren’t. Many films get flabby in act two (the longest and largest act) because they pack it with noise and action that has nothing to do with the story.

Another book I had was called something like “96 Reasons Your Novel Won’t Get Published, and Three Why It Might.” It was written in a similar way to “Up The Organization.” It was a series of memos on various topics (ie reasons). Here are a few:

You don’t know how to spell,

You don’t know grammar,

You don’t listen to advise,

I will immediately stop reading a piece that has a subject like “me and Joe”. Okay, maybe it’s trite but if you don’t know that a subject can’t have an objective pronoun … well, it’s just grating on my ears. Sorry. Kind of like sitting opposite someone at a meal who thinks it’s okay to show you the contents of their meal while they eat it. 

Over use of relative pronouns. Yes, I know it’s easier to write with pronouns, but if you want to be understood then cut back. Yes, it’s more boring to write that way, but remember you know where you are going with your story, your audience does not. Here’s an example:

The train was on the plain as the sun set. It was red and orange.

Okay, no problem, right?

What if I wrote:

The train was on the plain as the sun set. It was steely gray.

What? What was steely gray? The sun? The train? 

Rules of grammar say it should be the last noun encountered. That would be the sun.

Is the sun steely gray? Seems odd. Red and orange okay. Got to be the sun.

If there is any question – Don’t use the pronoun!

The train was on the plain as the sun set. The train was red and orange.

The train was on the plain as the sun set. The sun was steely gray.

In both cases above I’ve written something that is unusual. This should make a reader’s ears perk up. They might now be alert to something is going to happen that is unexpected.

If you want to write for speed, by that I mean something that can be read fast. Eliminate pronouns and complex sentences. Subject – Verb – Object is the way to go. Nothing else.

The train was on the plain. The sun was setting. The sun was red and orange. The train was steely gray.

By all means eliminate “nots” and negatives when writing for speed, or any other time if possible.

If you miss that one word you lose the meaning.

Thou Shall Commit Adultery.

Hum. Really? (Well, there was one bible written in the 1600s that forgot the “not”. A very popular edition.)

For clarity it would be better to write:

Do Not commit

because the “not” is not buried in the middle of the sentence where it would be lost.

Take time to reread your work. Even though I do, I still miss spellings. specially ones the spell checker has inserted for me! Although, I like spell checkers they are to some degree evil and you must be wary. if it’s important print it out and read it out loud. Get someone else to read it.

Okay. More than enough.

And remember, one last thing. This is very important . .

                                                                                        . .  . .

                                                                                           .   .  .  .

                                                                                                      . 

*STORY – Robert McKee (What did you think it would be called?)